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"Bring Me Another Rock" threads

Okay, I have now seen a couple of these. The OP asks a question, apparently seeking input from people on the forum. The question is vague or general, or seems incomplete (like there is additional context that is not stated). People respond, sometimes trying to give an answer, sometimes asking for additional information, sometimes questioning the accuracy/validity of the original question, etc. The OP then responds by telling those responding that they have it wrong, and that their answer is somehow inappropriate. I find this annoying, and it makes me far less likely to try to answer questions from one of these posters.

If you are tempted to engage in this "No, not that rock, that rock is not the right one, bring me another rock" activity, here are my thoughts/suggestions:

1) There are members on here with a lot of experience, and they are used to seeing questions where the OP has not thought of something, or is working from bad information, or is making a false assumption, or has not provided enough information. By asking questions, those members are usually trying to figure out how to give a good answer to the original question. Don't be insulted, or tell them that their question is stupid or inappropriate.

2) Yes, you will get some answers that are unhelpful, sometimes annoyingly so. Example - you announce that you hate Yamaha horns, and ask for recommendations for a NEW tenor, and invariably someone will tell you to just get a used YTS-23. Just ignore these answers (unless you think the person has just missed something, and you really want an answer from them, in which case you can politely re-ask them the question with a clarification).

3) There are a wide variety of people on this forum, with a wide variety of experiences and perspectives, some of which will differ from your own. I find that there are some people whose stuff I consistently like (Pete Thomas, JayePDX, bandmommy, Sigmund451 come to mind), there are a few I find annoying or dislike, and there are some who sometimes I don't like but who will also sometimes provide really valuable advice. It is hard to know exactly who likes/respects who, but if I see you dissing someone that I like/respect, I will have less respect for you, and I will be less likely to try to help you. So again, if you don't like someone's answer, just ignore it. Take the good stuff, ignore the bad stuff, and think about the stuff that is coming from a different perspective.

4) While some people may participate here primarily for commercial reasons, I think most people (even those with commercial interests) are on this forum because they want to be part of a community. This is a social network. As with any community, don't be a jerk, don't put people down.

Re: "Bring Me Another Rock" threads

That is a really great set of guidelines for keeping ones visit to SOTW enjoyable. One of my mentors reminds me on occasion that a good workable strategy to keeping personal peace is to assume folks you encounter are just doing the best they can. Thanks for your post!

Re: "Bring Me Another Rock" threads

I have learned in many years that many don’t bother to read anything else than the title of a thread, they will give their civerging opinion even if the thread is clearly NOT asking for that particular option they also don’t read any other suggestion written before theirs nor do they follow any links of things written in support of any side of the discussion.

Which brings me to another favorite topic.

The point of a forum is not to agree on anything but to discuss and discussing can come from disagreement, but it doesn’t have to become and argument every time we disagree, there are those who think that only those who agree with them are nice and those who disagree are not.

At the end of the day things are the way they are and people will be people.

Life is just a bowl... some have cherries in it, some don’t. Those who have the cherries aren’t likely to share them though.

Re: "Bring Me Another Rock" threads

Originally Posted by milandro

The point of a forum is not to agree on anything but to discuss and discussing can come from disagreement, but it doesn’t have to become and argument every time we disagree, there are those who think that only those who agree with them are nice and those who disagree are no

Very true. We've all seen some pretty nasty swipes made simply because someone disagrees with what somewhat else has written.

Regarding artstove's post, there is also the frequent occurrence in which a poster asks a question, fully aware of what answer he (it seems to be almost always he, probably because of the preponderance of males on the forum) is seeking, then gets huffy when an answer if proffered completely opposite to the one desired.

Re: "Bring Me Another Rock" threads

absolutely and reminding the person whose comment is totally askew with the question that the question was not asking for that kind of answer only serves the purpose to annoy the author of the improper comment.

Same thing with reminding people that some things are not to be discussed because that is against the rules. You are quickly labelled (as I have often been) “ the forum police” or things like that while it is not anything different from real life.

The other day I was in the supermarket. They have a self service counter for cakes and similar things.

Of course you are not supposed to touch things that you are not buying.

A grandpa was there and allowed one of his two grandchildren to buy a doughnut but the grandchild took two. Grandpa was putting it back.

I told him that I didn’t think that that was allowed. He didn’t like it but he took the doughnut that both his grandchild and himself had touched and that without my comment would have gone back to the counter.

If we all took some responsibility to make sure that people are aware that it is not alright to just do things against the rules there would be a lot less that is not working. Indifference is not going to help.

Life is just a bowl... some have cherries in it, some don’t. Those who have the cherries aren’t likely to share them though.

Re: "Bring Me Another Rock" threads

Yeah, I've seen some of these threads where someone asks a vague question and then shouts down people that try and respond. My response tends to be just to walk away from such threads. If they can't be bothered to give enough info to make a sensible answer then you're on to a loser. If they react negatively to comments then you're either heading for an argument or just wasting your time trying to sort out what the actual problem is.

There's this thing I call Wolmanism. It's where people give good advice and explain the reasons for doing something that way and then the OP decides he knows best and goes off and does it a different way. This can result in knackered vintage horns, to the dispare of those that tried to help.

Some people don't take good advice. Some people can't ask the question properly in the first place. Some people don't react well if you don't answer 'properly'.

I try and help where I can. Usually there's two pages of replies before I get to answer a thread, so it's hardly worth replying. But if people do reply it'd be nice not to get shouted down.